California conservatives need to put aside their differences and remember who the real threat is, House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions told reporters Saturday at the California Republican Party convention in Burlingame.

Sessions, R-Texas, said whether they identify as Tea Partiers, nonpartisans, Republicans or what have you, they must understand that “to win, and to have people in place to fight democrats and liberals, is what this is about.”

The alternative is “big government, expensive government, and we will fail to answer the bill for having our infrastructure, our military, our livelihood to build a better future,” he said. That should motivate “fear of where we are headed and why it’s got to be stopped.”

Regarding Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s continuing efforts to lure California businesses away to Texas, Sessions replied that some companies “chose to move because they had a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to run their businesses efficiently,” and that’s easier under the looser regulations and lower taxes that Texas’ conservative government offers.

But Sessions – who’ll address the convention’s banquet Saturday night – said “the Republican Party in California has a man in Jim Brulte who has a desire to win conservative Republican races” with an approach that’s less about ideological purity and more about running a pro-business, limited-government party.

Asked about Brulte’s strategy of focusing this year upon key congressional, legislative and local races rather than tough-if-not-unwinnable statewide contests, Sessions replied that “putting a person in every single race is not an effective way for you to use your money or resources.”

But rising food and gas prices, President Obama’s refusal to pursue “common sense” job and energy ideas like the Keystone XL pipeline, “the miserable failure of their healthcare” bill and Democrats’ “shrill liberalism and dogma” should give Republicans a strong message around which to unite in 2014, Sessions said.

Obamacare is the prime example, he said, with even some Democrats voting for bills to roll back certain sections of the Affordable Care Act after “they recognized they’re in trouble at home and they need to vote for repeal.” Meanwhile, other Democrats continue to stick to this “bad deal.”

That’s the trouble with liberal Democrats, Sessions said: “They want to tell you what you have to do. If it was so great, it should’ve been an option.”